Redirects on multi language site and language detection
-
Hello!
I have a multi language site in German and English. The site ranked well for the brand name and for German keywords. But after switching to a contend delivery network and changing the language detection method from browser language to IP location the site had indexing and ranking problems. Also in SERP the English homepage is shown for German keywords. On the other hand the language detection method is more accurate now.
Current setup:
The languages are separated via a folder structure for the languages: www.site.com/**en **and www.site.com/de. If the users IP is in Germany he is redirected via 302 from .com to .com/de. The rest of the world is redirected via 302 to .com/en. So the root www.site.com/ doesn't exist but has the most of the backlinks.
Each folder has one sitemap under /de/sitemap.xml and /en/sitemap.xml. Each site and the root (.com, .com/de, .com/en) was added to WMT (no geo targeting) and the sitemaps were added (on the root domain both sitemaps and on the language specific sites just one). The sitemaps have no hreflang tag.
Each page has an hreflang tag in the header pointing to itself and the alternate language. hreflang="x-default" is not set anywhere. Also on each page is a link to change language.
Goals:
From an SEO point of view we primarily target German speaking people. But a lot of international people (US, South America, Europe) search for our brand name so we want to serve them the English site. Therefore we want to:
- Get all the link juice when someone links to www.site.com to the German site
- Show Germans the German site in SERP and all others the English one
- Still serve the language automatically based on the location
Do you have any idea how to achieve this? I think our main problem is that we want to push the German site the most but still serve the English site for most people (and therefore the Google Bot). Also does submitting the same sitemap twice (on the domain site and folders) do any harm?
Any help oder links to ressources are greatly appreciated. I read a ton of articles but they are mostly for the case that english is the default language.
Thanks for you help Moz community!
Alex
-
I would go with option 3 Alex. If you want to have most of your visibility aimed at Germany, then it makes sense to have the primary content on here and then have a site.com/en for the rest of the world.
There is no reason to redirect everyone as soon as they get to you if you still have a primary audience.
-Andy
-
Hey Andy,
thanks for your answer Andy. This would imply three solutions if I understood it correctly:
1. Change the 302 to 301 for both redirects to .com/de oder .com/en.
2. Do always an 301 redirect from .com -> .com/de to pass link juice and afterwards check for the IP location and send everyone who is not in Germany to .com/en with an 302.
3. Move the .com/de to the root folder .com and create another folder for every other language. In this scenario there would be no redirect for Germans at all.
Which would you recommend?
-
That's a lot you have going on there Alex.
OK, so first of all, if you have one sitemap pointing to the German pages and another to the English, this is absolutely fine. No harm will come of this. HREFLANG will take care of helping Google understand which pages are for which country.
However, this is going to cause you issues:
So the root www.site.com/ doesn't exist but has the most of the backlinks.
Because you have most links here, and the root doesn't exist, as soon as someone arrives, they are being sent off via a 302 to a new page. Any link juice coming to the homepage is going to be diluted as soon as it is redirected. And a 302 is understood to dilute this a lot more than a 301 would.
I would also look to be doing some internal linking (if this hasn't been done) as well because this can help Google understand more about the structure of your site.
I hope this helps a little.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Basic Redirection Question
I am doing a 301 Redirect from site ABC to site XYZ. I loaded the following .htaccess file by ftp to the ABC.com/ server: Redirect 301 / http://XYZ.com/ This was completed over 30 days ago, OSE is not showing any of the links and is failing to show that abc.com is redirected even though the MozBar shows a successful 301 http status code. Is this still just a waiting game or is it not advised to do a redirect this way for seo? PS: ahrefs is showing the redirect itself, however, it is not showing the links going to site ABC.com/ as passing to site XYZ.com/ . Any help is appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Vspeed0 -
Site structure headache
Hello all, I'm struggling to get to grips with a websites site structure. I appreciate that quality content is key etc, and the more content the better, but then I have issues with regards to doorway pages. For example im now starting to develop a lot of ecommerce websites and want to promote this service. should we have pages that detail all of the ins and outs of ecommerce - or should we simplify it to a couple of pages. what is best practice? Also isn't a content hub similar to having doorway pages? let me know what you think! William
Technical SEO | | wseabrook0 -
Are the duplicate content and 302 redirects errors negatively affecting ranking in my client's OS Commerce site?
I am working on an OS Commerce site and struggling to get it to rank even for the domain name. Moz is showing a huge number of 302 redirects and duplicate content issues but the web developer claims they can not fix those because ‘that is how the software in which your website is created works’. Have you any experience of OS Commerce? Is it the 302 redirects and duplicate content errors negatively affecting the ranking?
Technical SEO | | Web-Incite0 -
Site Indexed but not Cached?
I launched a new website ~2 weeks ago that seems to be indexed but not cached. According to Google Webmaster most of the pages are indexed and I see them appear when I search site:www.xxx.com. However, when I type into the URL - cache:www.xxx.com I get a 404 error page from Google.
Technical SEO | | theLotter
I've checked more established websites and they are cached so I know I am checking correctly here... Why would my site be indexed but not in the cache?0 -
How does Google Crawl Multi-Regional Sites?
I've been reading up on this on Webmaster Tools but just wanted to see if anyone could explain it a bit better. I have a website which is going live soon which is going to be set up to redirect to a localised URL based on the IP address i.e. NZ IP ranges will go to .co.nz, Aus IP addresses would go to .com.au and then USA or other non-specified IP addresses will go to the .com address. There is a single CMS installation for the website. Does this impact the way in which Google is able to search the site? Will all domains be crawled or just one? Any help would be great - thanks!
Technical SEO | | lemonz0 -
Domain redirect
Recently we launched a site under a new domain, the site is doing well under the URL. Client calls me today and would like to have another domain he owns point to the new site. The domain he has has no history and no content. He is under the impression that people are looking for him by typing in www.domainxyz.com. I attempted to explain otherwise to him, but I lost. Question, what are the drawbacks of taking this domin and doing a perm redirect via . Httpaccess file?
Technical SEO | | VanadiumInteractive0 -
Is this a safe 301 redirect?
We are moving our site from one platform to another. Currently on our site we have two homepages. "www.homepage.com" and "www.homepage.com/Index" Both pages have some high quality links pointing in on them. The problem: We are going to be doing a 301 redirect from "www.homepage.com/Index" page to "www.homepage.com" as we are moving platforms at this time we weren't going to create a "www.homepage.com/Index" page all. This leaves this page as an empty URL. With this webpage disappearing all together will we lose traction as we are redirecting an empty URL? Or is it better to recreate this "www.homepage.com/Index" on our new platform redirect it and wait for google to deIndex this page for us? As well is there a tutorial for how to implement 301 redirects or is this something worth looking for a developer and pay someone to do?
Technical SEO | | HCGDiet0 -
301-redirect
Hi My website is fairly new and i wasnt aware of the difference btw 'website.com' and 'www.website.com' when i started up. It doesnt matter which one i use as long as i am consistent right ? Most of my ingoing links are to mainpage on 'website.com'. I have som ingoing links to 'www.website.com' but also some to 'www.website.com/brandname'. is it enough to 301-redir 'www.website.com' to 'website.com' or does it need to be done on several levels ? I need to have someone do the redirect for me - how can i check its working when its done ? Dan Lærum
Technical SEO | | danlae0